Ohio

Image borrowed from Bing

OHIO


Ohio understands the genius my youth
once felt, the soft smell of corn in my hair. We ran
along gravel roads, looking for tomorrow’s sweet
smile. There were no mountains, but there were girls,
sometimes in pairs, in rivers, in backseats, in basements.
Death was a horizon we hadn’t reached, so we tested
poisons on our bodies to understand the smell. All our pets
were run over by our uncles, and we learned not to cry
in front of Mamaw. Now, we use the steady flow of rivers
to guide our days, the rusted heaps of our fathers’ wrecked
first cars to stand for the wisdom of age. We aren’t looking
for tomorrow, only an eternal today. We eat too much
because we know what it is to starve. Fear
tastes like everything.

C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Right Hand Pointing